The Devil's Cage

The sudden tremendous power was formless, weird and it was far beyond Kieran’s imagination.

Kieran’s A rank Strength was suppressed down without any resistance and even his joints were giving out clear cracking noise!

Grack! Tsk Tsk!

When the clear cracks sounded, Kieran’s legs even plunged into the concrete ground, burying him over his ankles. Most importantly, the tremendous power was increasing by the second.

Kieran could clearly feel the power wasn’t in a hurry to crush him but wanted to tease him more like a cat teasing a mouse.

The source of the power wasn’t paying attention yet it wanted to crush him, not only physically but mentally as well. Even though the system didn’t show any notifications of Spirit disruption, he could feel it.

He had no idea why the power wanted to do so but he knew this was his chance to escape.

"Haa!"

Kieran stuck his neck up, giving out a loud roar and mustered all his strength for an upward push. He hoped that he could find a slight window to carry out his attacks and such window came easier than he had thought.

The moment the tremendous power felt Kieran’s might, it stopped abruptly, as if it was waiting for Kieran to make his move.

Everything then unfolded just as Kieran’s expected.

The power wanted to crush him physically and mentally, so it didn’t even mind Kieran resisting its power. More so, from a certain perspective, the more Kieran resisted, the more delighted the owner of the power would be.

When a person has depleted all his might and skills yet still feel helpless against the situation, despair will follow and that will be the time ideal to crush the person.

So when Kieran did a sudden side roll on the ground, firing both his legs up to his head, the strange, tremendous power appeared again. Though this time around, Kieran’s sudden burst of strength exceeded its expectation.

Bang!

Bang bang bang!

The seemingly empty sky gave out a series of heavy bangs. With the buffs from Transcendence [Hand-to-hand Combat, Kick Combats], Kieran’s Strength and Agility was boosted up to S+ rank temporarily and freed himself from the power’s restraints. He even counterattacked.

Without a second of delay, after Kieran quickly launched his dual kick, he followed up with [Barsical Kick]’s attacking rhythm.

The fourth and fifth kick granted Kieran’s Strength and Agility another +2 and +3 buff respectively.

At the fourth kick, Kieran S rank Strength and Agility had been boosted to SS and at the fifth kick, it was boosted to SS+.

A and SS+ has a difference of heaven and earth, a total difference of 7 ranks and even its properties and qualities had been completely altered.

The formless strength was scattered right away following Kieran’s explosive kicks.

"Eh!?

An unknown, deep voice sounded suddenly in Kieran’s ears.

The scattered power gathered once more following the voice but this time around it didn’t suppress Kieran anymore but appeared in a different form.

The dark sky before Kieran turned even darker, the moon and the stars dimmed down to the same shades of black with the sky because a gigantic figure that was dazzling in burning brightness, similar to a midnight sun appeared!

"OBEY ME!"

The thunderous voice sounded really like thunder itself, echoing in Kieran’s ears non-stop.

The impact of its appearance was huge. Even if Kieran didn’t pay attention to his notifications from the system, he had a hunch that the notifications spamming him were about Fear or other sorts of debuffs, however, Kieran was relieved.

Now, his strongest attribute was Spirit! His Spirit rank was at the SSS+ rank!

Reaching the limit of his character model and had always been Kieran’s biggest reliance, even though he was familiar with fighting using his great sword and hand-to-hand combat.

The impact from the dazzling brightness that was enough to crush all of the common mystics and most of the elites mystics were only a windy breeze before Kieran.

Kieran squinted his eyes against the gigantic dazzling figure, and without any further thoughts, he could already guess what it was.

Divine being!

From the books that he read, a big portion of them described the divine being as "gigantic", "dazzling", "prestigious" and such. In summary, any praises that existed were used to describe them but they were also being described as "selfish", "dark" and "vicious" by another portion, which accumulated all the malicious comments about them.

One side justice, one side evil.

Perhaps it was how the people of the current world viewed them, the divine beings.

The divine being before Kieran though, it was almost certain that it didn’t come with good intentions.

Whether it was the previous suppression or the current appearance, everything it did until now was to crush Kieran.

As for why?

Kieran suddenly thought of the God of Judgement.

The divine being before him now was obviously something similar to the previous one at Ciaran City, the same broken kind.

Kieran didn’t mind describing the divine being as a "thing". It wasn’t that he didn’t have any beliefs but within his range of beliefs, there wasn’t one that he relied on to protect himself.

He only believed in himself, striving to become stronger than before.

Broken?

Perhaps the divine being before Kieran was in a much more better shape than the previous one or what was left in its body but still, it wasn’t really a true divine being, even the shadow that it cast was a mile apart from the true one.

Otherwise, Kieran wouldn’t even stand a chance of resisting.

Kieran knew in his gut because he had read some of the masterpieces that described the divine beings in details.

"OBEY ME!"

Another thunderous voice sounded, more powerful and more sonorous than before.

Though it was nothing but a windy breeze turned into a strong wind. Although Kieran felt pain, it wasn’t fatal.

While feeling the pain stinging his body, Kieran raised his right hand, [Mardos Arm] was flashing faintly. A crystal clear spider web was fired out and tangled at the gigantic, dazzling divine image.

It wasn’t that Kieran didn’t think of any other resisting methods but obviously, the divine being before him was some illusory existence that lingered in between phantasmal and reality. Most of Kieran’s attack would be rendered useless and left with only a handful of options. Even more so, Kieran could clearly feel the hunger coming out from [Mardos Arm].

It wanted to hunt its prey!

[Mardos Arm] wanted to hunt the afterimage of the divine being.

Mardos was the hatchling from the Hell Fiend Spider egg that was left in the mortal world.

Its special breeding and hatching process caused it to have congenital dysplasia, not only did it lose the inheritance of the original Hell Fiend Spider abilities, its power and intellect were halved to a new low, but its instinct was kept.

The predatory instinct that hunted for divine beings!

Kieran clearly felt the Eye of Chimeras, the devil power, and the Holy Knight soul was communicating and to Kieran’s surprise, they didn’t object to the little spider.

Mardos had natural defects but wasn’t the divine being before him defected as well?

More so, other than [Mardos Arm], Kieran still has other means to deal with it.

So, the next moment, the spider web became tangled in the divine being’s image.

Fuuuu!

The Hell Fiend Spider fire from hell started to burn fiercely on the divine being.

A sound of agonizing pain that didn’t fit its divine image sounded.

The fire was only a Strong level attack and mixed with an Average level of negative energy corrosion, yet it caused the divine being to cry in pain.

Kieran was stunned.

He activated [Hell Fiend Spider Fire] out of instinct, he didn’t even expect such a reaction from his opponent.

What unfolded later exceeded Kieran’s expectation, even more, causing him to widen his eyes.